Ban on women in combat to be lifted

MILITARY

Associated Press

Updated 11:04 pm, Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Washington --

The Pentagon is lifting its ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after generations of limits on their service, defense officials said Wednesday.

The changes, to be announced Thursday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, will not happen overnight. The services must now develop plans for allowing women to seek the combat positions, a senior military official said.

Some jobs may open as soon as this year, while assessments for others, such as special operations forces, including Navy SEALs and the Army's Delta Force, may take longer. The services also will have until January 2016 to make a case to that some positions should remain closed to women.

The groundbreaking move recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff overturns a 1994 rule prohibiting women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units.

There long has been opposition to putting women in combat, based on questions of whether they have the necessary strength and stamina for certain jobs, or whether their presence might hurt unit cohesion.

"It reflects the reality of 21st century military operations," Levin said.

Women who recently served alongside men on the front lines, but were denied combat status, have filed suits in San Francisco and Washington to challenge the ban.

"This is exactly what we've been fighting for," one of the San Francisco plaintiffs, Marine Corps Capt. Colleen Farrell, said Wednesday. Farrell, 26, of Boston, spent four years on active duty before transferring to the reserves in December and led a team of women on patrol in Afghanistan for seven months.

"Women have already been serving in combat roles," Farrell said. Despite reservations about the Pentagon's extended timeline, she said the change "will hopefully recognize women's service and leadership in Iraq and Afghanistan the past 10 years."

Panetta's move comes in his final weeks as Pentagon chief and days after President Obama's inaugural speech, in which he spoke passionately about equal rights for all. The new order expands the department's action last year to open about 14,500 combat positions to women, nearly all of them in the Army. Panetta's decision could open more than 230,000 jobs, many in Army and Marine infantry units, to women.

Under the 1994 Pentagon policy, women were prohibited from being assigned to ground combat units below the brigade level, which is about 3,500 troops.

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